Archives for December 2010

Just a quick note to say Happy New Year to everyone. 2010 was an okay year for us at our house and I hope 2011 will be full of opportunity, excitement and happiness. I’m not a big fan of New Years resolutions per se but I am looking at a couple of goals for 2011. First and foremost is a desire to get healthy. I

Xzibit (Alvin Joiner) from the show “Pimp My Ride” owes upwards of $1M in taxes and has a negative net worth of about $660K. Apparently he has declared bankruptcy twice since 2009. Really? You can do that? It sure looks like Xzibit probably should have made a few different decisions. A $2200+ car payment? Really? http://jalopnik.com/5720753/xzibit-pimp-my-ride-made-me-broke

I bought a large chunk of $1 gold coins from the US Mint today thanks to a suggestion by Nickel over at Five Cent Nickel. He mentioned that the Mint has a program going right now where you can buy the coins at face value and get free shipping. â€œWhy bother?", you ask. Well, I used my American Express card and will receive cash back

I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for public pensioners around the country. Prichard Alabama quit paying out benefits to all of it’s retirees in 2009 against state law. So far, no one has forced the city to start paying benefits again but there are lawsuits. Unfortunately a number of people have died since the benefits stopped, including the retired fire

I’ve been watching all the tax cut coverage over the last month or so and was actually surprised that they came up with a compromise. A compromise that I think is a pathetic cop out from all parties involved. Farm animals could have completed that deal so it’s not quite what I would like to expect from my politicians. I better stop at that so

I love reading articles like this partly because it gives me a window in to someone else’s finances but also because they often have good ideas that people can use RIGHT NOW to save money. In this article, Elisabeth Leamy helps the Gunn family from Oswego NY save over $58,000 (over time) by implementing simple changes to their spending patterns. Some of the top tips:

Last weekend we did something VERY out of character. We spent the weekend in downtown Seattle. We had a really good time and we don’t regret it, but I’ve still found myself thinking, â€œYikes, that was expensive!â€. It all started when a friend of our daughter’s asked if she’d like to attend a Santa breakfast downtown at a very high end hotel. This friend’s parents

Here’s an interesting article that talks about a couple of new Broadcom chips that will be coming out in 2011 that will drastically reduce the price of smart phones. Today, people have to buy smart phones through a carrier (mostly) and pay a cost somewhere around $200 plus a steep monthly fee. It’s $200 because the carrier is subsidizing the price of the phone and

I’m sure this isn’t the last article we’ll see with tips on jobs you can do when you would ideally be retired. With the sorry state of retirement balances for the average citizen it’s no surprise that more and more people will be looking for ways to supplement their income in their golden years. Not everyone will need to find that part time job in

In a sign that there are plenty of people out there desperate to pay the bills, 70 year old Sandra Bathke has been arrested for robbing the Elysian State Bank. She allegedly told her driver that she needed to stop by the bank to make a withdrawal to pay her rent. Needless to say, it didn’t go quite as she’d hoped and now she’s charged